Reply to Wilson/College Matriculation?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DCUM Wilson Parents - here is what you need to know:  at the beginning of junior year, hire a private college counselor, and take SAT/ACt prep. classes.  That will set you back about $3,000-$5,000 total - it will close any gaps between Wilson and expensive privates.   No, it is not cheap - unless you compare it to the $150,000 that private school would have cost you.

Signed -

Parent of a Wilson senior.

[/quote]sorry to say, but SAt prep needs to be done summer before junior year, or the psat is not going to vet your child to nmf consideration [/quote]

Who really cares about NMF consideration. It's a nice honor but it doesn't confer a lot else. [/quote]

First of all - as another Ivy alum, I call BS on the person's Wilson experience above. Second, DCPS's college counselor situation is very similar to other public schools - even in MoCo and in NoVa.  There parents often regularly are also paying for SAT prep classes etc.  If you are savvy about the college application process as parents and put the time in yourself, you don't need a college counselor - but one way or another, it does help to have some knowledge base of how it works and how to position your kid. On the flip side, you aren't in a pool like many of the privates where nearly 100% of the kids are applying to all of the same schools - and you paid $40K per year for the benefit of college counselors who end up often in a position of trying to explain that your kid is not one of the legacy or tippy top kids getting within that class getting into the Ivy slots.[/quote]

NP. Yet another Ivy alum and volunteer interviewer, I call BS on you.

I recently stopped interviewing in DCPS, period, after 6 or 7 years of doing it. Wilson, Walls, Banneker, you guys can have them all. Mediocre is too tame a word for each of these programs where prepping the strongest students for college goes.

Now I stick to MoCo, NOVA and independent schools. I agree with the rest![/quote]

Please explain what the issue with DCPS students? Mediocre how? [/quote]

You really want to know? For starters, many of the Wilson students who load up on AP classes clearly don't belong in AP classes, or at least not a full complement of them. There seems to be an open enrollment policy for AP classes at Wilson, which hurts the best students. It's rare to talk to a Wilson student who has scored 4s and 5s on half a dozen or more APs, unlike in the burbs, or at Walls that matter.

What I'm going to call academic extra-curricular activities aren't pushed at Wilson, from competing in regional, national and international science competitions, to essay competitions, to doing academic research and publishing, to interning at the Smithsonians, to foreign language competitions etc. This is changing, but slowly.

From what I've observed, many of the kids who crack Ivies are low SES and/or minority - the mediocrity hits high SES white kids who are strong students harder than others. It's more gratifying to interview kids, both high and low SES, who attend test-in HS programs in MoCo and NOVA, such as the Blair Montgomery magnets, the Richard Montgomery IB program and of course TJ. They have a much better shot of being offered a spot, and, presumably, thriving in college. Launch into me for my observations but I'm not the one impacted by the mediocrity. Parents tend to assume that attending a DCPS school will earn high SES white kids a "break" in elite college admissions. Not from what I've observed.

Yes, there are kids who crack Ivies at Wilson, but not a lot.[/quote]

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